France’s ENDLESS FLOODS Return For Mesmerizing Doomer ‘Rites Futurs’
Today, we hail a powerful new atmospheric gem from Bordeaux three-piece ENDLESS FLOODS. I’m not sure if the band’s name is drawn from the Song of Solomon or not (“many waters cannot quench love”) or whether it is in reference to something more grim, such as the soul-weathering nature of our era. All that’s important is we have a fourth album from the band, which we brought to your attention way back in 2016 when they released their self-titled debut.
Now we ready for a fourth album Rites Futurs, this one featuring a seamless melding of talent from Louise Dehaye (vocals), Stéphane Miollan (guitar, bass, vox), and Benjamin Sablon (drums, synth, vox). Thibault Laisney (who provides some additional guitar) a fantastic job of recording and mixing the record at a/b box studio, the sound is clear, full, and roomy.
The songs certainly give you a lot to think about – less narrative and more contemplative. Sung entirely in the French tongue, the words in English are no less compelling:
“Planet-piercing silver spear
Incandescent like immense flames
Chariots arrive slowly
The chariots and the burning wind”
“L'Eclair” comes out with bristling guitar and wailing dissonance as the moon makes its appearance in the night sky. The amazing three-person choir is immediately arresting, containing elements classic and modern that flow from beautiful to mysterious to unsettling within a single progression. The jaded crooning at 2:05 rivals those of Undersmile. There are exaltant moments in this song (around 4 minutes in) that tap into a similar vein as Green Lung. Endless Floods are masters at transporting us through moods as naturally as the flow of disruptive waters. This is about light, balance, and contrast.
“Décennie” seems to be about time and how events repeat themselves endlessly in cycles, leading to a passionate climax of cymbals, screeching dissonance, and wailing voices.
Relancer chaque jour l'effet
et dans l'echo tout noyer
Lyrics are similarly grim on “Muraille,” which might be contemplating the ashen remains of Vesuvius (Nuage de lave mêlé au cristal des murs de flammes). There’s something quite ancient about the way the song starts, drawing upon early contrapuntal style. There are doomy elements in play, such as the funeral-esque guitar lead that follows. This is counterbalanced by glistening post-metal ambience and a haunting entanglement of voices that eventually take soaring into the aerosphere. There’s something at once meditative and bittersweet about the chorus that concludes the song (“Stone after stone, let’s climb airless enclaves”).
Louise Dehaye’s singing is reassuring and enchanting in the serene unfolding of title track “Rites Futures”. As the song developed, there are standout moments you’ll not hear anywhere else, such as the distant, riotous warbling of carolers set against a slow, fuzzy, bad-ass headbanger riff with garage vibes that goes shoegazey then has an out-and-out meltdown of black metal tremeloes, finally taking us to record center in a blaze of hypnotic glory as singers coalesce Gregorian chant style. The closing moments settle us into calm, reassurance that after all is said and done, we are always in the ever-present NOW.
Look for Endless Flood’s Rites Futurs on Friday, July 12th, with a limited run of cassettes issued by Breath Plastic Records (get it here or here). For many it will prompt you to get into their back catalogue, and summer is the perfect time to do it, especially at sunrise.
Give ear…
SOME BUZZ
After a five-year absence, Endless Floods are reunited around vocalist Louise Dehaye, Stéphane Miollan (guitar, bass, vocals) and Benjamin Sablon (drums, synths, vocals). Spanning through the crepuscular and droney doom landscapes of their first three records, they reveal in a prodigious blaze of post-metal, doom and shoegaze driven by the trio’s aerial choirs.
Bordeaux, France’s doom metal experimentalists Endless Floods formed in 2015 in Bordeaux around Stéphane Miollan (ex-Monarch, Bombardement, Faucheuse), Benjamin Sablon (ex-Monarch, Bombardement, Shock, Mégot) et Simon Bédy. With “no boundaries in heaviness” as a motto, they raise a prodigiously dense wall of sound by blending drone and doom metal aesthetics with mind-expanding ambient structures, like a sorrowful procession arising from the limbo…
The trio released their self-titled debut in 2015, quickly followed by their sophomore album “II” in the winter of 2017. This drone-sounding assault saw the band sinking deeper into bleakness and minimalism, immersing the listener in a monolithic and feedback-laden sonic experience described by the press as “a vast, never-ending room of heavy” (Cvlt Nation), “a juggernaut of sonic grandeur” (Metal Nexus) or simply “sublime” by Pure Grain Audio. Their third album “Circle The Gold” epitomized a fresh start in their creative process: between chaos and light, the Bordeaux trio transcended genre boundaries while unveiling a more melodic and cathartic aspect of their music.
After a five-year hiatus, ENDLESS FLOODS now returns with a new lineup and their fourth record "Rites Futurs”, to be released in July 2024. About the album, the band comments: “On Rites Futurs, we built a mythology around the idea of the rite of passage. The five tracks symbolize this tipping point into the unknown by evoking ancient traditions where fires extinguished everything in their path.”
It was recorded and mixed by Thibault Laisney at a/b box studio (Lestiac, France) and mastered by Ben Jones. Cover art and graphic design by Louise Dehaye. Constantly maintaining the subtle balance between light and melancholy, soaring atmospherics and granite riffs, Endless Floods deliver their sonic rebirth in forty minutes of a grippingly emotional experience.